Text Box: Cooperative Middle School Stratham, NH 603.778.7772 x8349 Text Box: Robinson Ropes Course

Text Box: © Copyright 2004. All rights reserved. Contact the Ropes Course Director, Cari-Ann Yarmus, if you would like permission to reproduce or copy any information found on this website. Text Box: Stages of Development Text Box:

 

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Text Box: © Cari-Ann Yarmus 2002-2004 Text Box: Experiential education is “hands-on” learning, or learning by doing. It is at the core of everything we do at the Robinson Ropes Course. Experiential activities present groups with new situations that are both fun and challenging, while allowing the group opportunities to practice and modify behavior. The results of any action are immediate and visible which helps group members become responsible to each other for decisions.  Individual learning and group development reinforce each other in this dynamic process.  Each program we do at the Robinson Ropes Course progresses through these stages of development:  Building awareness and knowledge of each other and the environment. Developing trust between group members. Increasing skills necessary to succeed in subsequent activities. Engaging in group problem-solving activities. Accepting the challenge of more difficult activities. Transferring the learning – identifying, summarizing, and celebrating Examples of activities that accomplish the desired goals in each of the stages:          Awareness/knowledge: emphasis is on the sharing of information by using name games, interviews, icebreaker games, orientation to wilderness environment, etc. ·       Trust:  fundamental trust activities that invite cooperation and sharing such as guided blind walks, falling, catching and supporting one another. ·       Skills:  activities that emphasize active listening, shared learning, conflict resolution, group decision-making models and tools, honest and open communication and respect. ·       Problem-solving:  mobile initiative games and low ropes course activities that require the group to analyze the problem at hand and plan a course of action, then assess their level of success and failure to determine which behaviors to replicate and which to change. ·       Challenge: moving to a higher level of challenge that requires greater cooperation, skill and willingness to risk.  Activities may include low ropes course events where participants are a short distance off of the ground and can culminate in high ropes events where participants are 40 or more feet off of the ground. ·       Transfer: group discussions follow each activity with the aim of reflecting on the immediate experience & transferring that learning back to their home setting (i.e. school.)  The large-group gatherings capture the essential lessons learned, celebrate achievements, and emphasize that  transfer to the future. This is page 3 of our Client Information Packet.                                                                If you would like the entire packet mailed to you, please send us an Email. Text Box: Home

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